Photo of the Day: Engineering a Mini-Brain!

"A bioengineering team at Brown University can grow “mini-brains” of neurons and supporting cells that form networks and are electrically active."

A bundle of neurons

Image credit: Hoffman-Kim lab/Brown University

Original source: An accessible approach to making a mini-brain

Motivational Quotes by Scientists

Not every day has to be serious and nerdy. Here are ten motivational quotes by famous scientists to get your Monday going:

"Progress is made by trial and failure; the failures are generally a hundred times more numerous than the successes ; yet they are usually left unchronicled."

William Ramsay, 1852 to 1916 - Chemist

"Science is vastly more stimulating to the imagination than the classics."

J. B. S. Haldane, 1892 to 1964 - Biologist

"Valid criticism does you a favor."
 Carl Sagan, 1934 to 1996 - Astronomer

We are storytelling animals, and cannot bear to acknowledge the ordinariness of our daily lives.

Stephen Jay Gould, 1941 to 2002 - Paleontologist

"Things are as they are because they were as they were."

Thomas Gold, 1920 to present - Astrophysicist

"Science is the acceptance of what works and the rejection of what does not. That needs more courage than we might think"

Jacob Bronowski, 1908 to 1974 - Mathematician, Biologist

"Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth."

Sir Isaac Newton, 1642 to 1727 - Physicist, Mathematician

"I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions, and into actions which bring results."

Florence Nightingale, 1820 to 1910 - Nurse, Statistician

"Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality."

Albert Einstein, 1859 to 1955 - Phycisist

"Wit is the best safety valve modern man has evolved; the more civilization, the more repression, the more the need there is for wit"

Sigmund Freud, 1856 to 1939 - Psychiatrist, Psychologist

And a website you may love browsing through: Explore 100 Famous Scientist Quotes Pages

Photo of the Day: Pluto's Blue Sky

This may look like a simple circle with a blue glow around it, but it is not. This is an image of the planet Pluto with an amazing blue haze around it, formed by tiny particles called Tholins that scatter sunlight to give this amazing blue glow.

Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Original source and more information: New Horizons Finds Blue Skies and Water Ice on Pluto

Photo of the Day: Viruses impaired if their targets have diverse genes

From a study from the University of Utah. "This scanning electron microscope image shows newly formed Friend virus particles (upper right in light blue) budding from an infected T-lymphocyte."

This strengthens the hypothesis that genetic variation between the same species of animals can help reduce the replication of a virus.

Image credit: Elizabeth Fischer and Austin Athman, NIAID, NIH


Original source: Viruses Impaired If Their Targets Have Diverse Genes

Courtesy: National Science Foundation 

Gaming addiction. Does it really happen?

Gaming addiction is a phenomenon that has a rising trend as we move forward to the future. What is that makes us game addicts though?

Civilization V - Game-play screenshot

Be honest here. Of those of you that play or played games, in some point in your life, did you not participate in the following situation? Your mom or dad calls you for dinner. You are in the middle of an "important" decision in a game and you scream back "I 'll be there in a minute". Then the one minute becomes five and the five ten. Finally you join them in the middle of dinner as if you were dealing with a life altering decision back there.

Of course some of you will say I don't get controlled by games, I don't play them. The difference is that you are not playing games. If you don't use something how will you be addicted to it. In the place of "games" you can put something else in there, like a TV program, reading, smoking a cigarette, work papers etc. A task you are doing that in the process causes you to be unsociable.

How does gaming addiction relates to science though? Apparently many studies have been conducted around this issue. An early research by Ko, Chih-Hung et al in 2009, showed that gaming addiction and substance addiction may share the same neurobiological mechanism.